By Teresa Green, Linda Golodner Food Safety and Nutrition Fellow

In the past week, orange juice has spent a lot of time in the headlines due to the detection of low levels of a fungicide called carbendazim in the orange juice.  Carbendazim is not approved for use in either the United States or the European Union but is widely used in other parts of the world to combat fungus that grows on fruit.  At high levels, the fungicide has been correlated with liver cancer in animal studies.

Coca Cola alerted the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to the presence of carbendazim after finding it in samples of juice it tested.  Orange juice from Brazil was implicated as the source of the residues.  In response to the alert from Coca Cola, FDA began to test imported orange juice for the presence of the fungicide.  The agency announced that it would ban any juices that contained more than 10 parts per billion (ppb) of carbendazim.

While the US and EU both ban it, only the EU has set a threshold for how much carbendazim is allowed in foods.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has determined that carbendazim at less than 80 ppb is not harmful.  Furthermore, FDA stated in a letter from January 9 that the “EPA has concluded that consumption of orange juice with carbendazim at the low levels that have been reported does not raise safety concerns.”

While FDA has stated that the level of carbendazim found in orange juice is not harmful, the issue still raises concerns for consumers.  There are three major things that need to happen here if consumers are to be protected.  First, FDA should issue limits on the amount of carbendazim that can be present in orange juice, a move that would get rid of the current ambiguity surrounding the issue.

Second, country of origin labels (COOL) on juice allow consumers to decide whether or not they want to buy a product which comes from a country with a history of using chemicals not approved in the US. Unfortunately, our entire COOL system is under attack by the World Trade Organization (WTO).  In order to protect consumers, the Obama administration should appeal the WTO’s recent ruling and fight to protect COOL.

Finally, FDA, which is responsible for the safety of much of the food in this country, should be adequately funded so that it can carry out its expanded mandate as prescribed by the recent Food Safety Modernization Act.  Only with increased funding can FDA continue to do the work that protects our food supply.

While FDA has so far not found excess amounts of carbendazim in any of the samples it has tested, consumers may still want to avoid orange juice that contains this chemical.  There are two ways to do this.  First, if you want to avoid many pesticide residues, drink orange juice that is certified 100% organic.  Second, look at the label to see where the orange juice comes from and drink only U.S. orange juice. For now, FDA has stated that it will not recall any orange juice and that the juice available is safe to drink.

By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director Financial guru Suze Orman launched her “Approved Card” this week to much fanfare – on Sunday Ron Lieber profiled the card in the New York Times. Orman appeared on the daytime television show, The View, hosted by Barbara Walters and Whoopi Goldberg, and she strolled through the Paramus, NJ mall on camera and talked with average consumers. Lieber is a columnist with a bias in favor of consumers who are getting slammed by big corporate interests. His response to Suze’s card  was mostly high praise; he ended the column with this:

“…I asked her to put her hand on one of the money bibles she has written and swear not to raise Approved card fees in the next 24 months. She said she would shut the card down before that happened. ‘I am not going to make money off the 99 percenters’ backs,’ A pledge like that takes guts, and anyone who has browbeaten TransUnion into even considering a big change deserves praise. Here’s hoping that she succeeds in her credit mission — and that other media personalities like Dave Ramsey and Jim Cramer put the heat on companies in other high-fee, low-service industries and make them sweat, too.

If you’re like me, the Suze Orman you know is the very charismatic – and bossy – TV personality who tells  Americans to stop spending beyond their means, to figure how to improve their FICO scores, and get a budget you can afford and stick to it. But yesterday another  – and equally admirable –  Suze Orman appeared at the National Press Club –  flanked by radio talk show host Tavis Smiley and the Harvard Professor Cornel West and the topic was poverty, the disappearance of the middle class and how big banks and credit card companies with their hidden and predatory fees are taking money from the pockets of poor people.

And that scenario, Suze said, is what motivated her to develop a prepaid debit card that isn’t out to earn its namesake – the card is called “The Approved Card from Suze Orman” – big bucks, but instead has a salutary goal: first, you can’t spend beyond your means as so many consumers do with credit cards because the Approved Card is like cash – you only load the cash you have onto the card,  and second, and more important, over time if consumers use the card wisely,  those who don’t have a FICO score or have a low one, and are thus punished by exorbitant fees on insurance, house or car loans, can get build up their credit and get a decent FICO score.

The card has minimal fees – $3 a month maintenance and ATM usage charge of around $2 a transaction, none of those hateful Kim Kardashian card -fees which charged you to load the card, to cancel the card, and a huge monthly maintenance, etc etc etc Orman, Smiley and West were heading to George Washington University last evening for a forum on poverty in America and how to get America – and our presidential  candidates –  talking about it again.

Suze Orman – who understands financial products better than anyone – and preaches personal financial responsibility  like no one else– also says that many Americans have been driven into bankruptcy, unemployment and poverty often through no fault of their own – they were directed to subprime loans, they are underwater on mortgages they didn’t understand (by design) they were issued credit cards and opened bank accounts that imposed every sort of  fees and penalties that eventually ate away at their savings.

It’s a narrative that rings true for so many of the people we represent at the National Consumers League. So I’m with the New York Times: Go Suze! Here’s hoping that your card puts the heat on companies with high fees and low services,  and ultimately helps consumers climb out of debt and build back their credit. And keep doing it: help build back the middle class and using the bully pulpit to talk about poverty in America and what can be doing to fight it – you have the floor – and the microphone – and we thank you for using it on behalf of those who voices are so rarely heard.

By Michell K. McIntyre, Director of NCL’s Special Project on Wage Theft 

What a way to start the New Year! This week saw three exceptional events that signal an optimistic outlook for 2012.  President Obama not only decided to use his executive power to make recess appointments but he used them to appoint Richard Cordray to the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and filled the three vacancies at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

With Cordray’s appointment to the CFPB, the Bureau can finally begin its vital mission of standing by consumers, demanding greater transparency about consumer financial products and pursing enforcement actions against financial firms who have defrauded consumers or otherwise violated federal rules. Without a director, the CFPB could not have moved forwarded with its critical work and consumers would be left at the mercy of financial institutions.

Later that same day, President Obama appointed three very qualified individuals to the NLRB – Sharon Block, Terence F. Flynn and Richard Griffin. With these appointments the NLRB can continue to police employers, unions, and workers. Without these bipartisan appointments the five seat NLRB would not have had a quorum, having only two seats filled as of January 3rd, and would have been paralyzed until the Senate confirmed the nominees.

None of these events could have happened without President Obama taking the step to stop the nullification of these federal agencies by the minority in the Senate.  According to USA Today, when the Senate minority filibustered Cordray’s nomination last month, it was the first time in history the Senate blocked an appointment in an effort to effectively shut down an agency.  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell stated, “We won’t support a nominee for this bureau – regardless of who the president is.” While Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called it “the first time in Senate history a party blocked a qualified nominee solely because it disagrees with the existence of an agency that was created by law, through a bipartisan vote.”

When President Obama stepped up to the plate on Wednesday and used his executive power to make recess appointments, he not only hit it out of the ballpark but he hit a grand slam for American consumers and workers.

By Michell K. McIntyre, NCL’s Special Project on Wage Theft

Thanks to some state legislatures, the start of the New Year means new rules for some workers. Eight states helped their workers with an increase in their state minimum hourly wage. Washington continues to lead the nation with the highest state minimum wage and is the only state with a minimum wage higher than $9. As of January 1, 2012, its minimum wage is $9.04 per hour. Seven other states also increased their minimum wages at the first of the year: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Montana, Ohio, Oregon, and Vermont.

As of the first of the year, San Francisco leads nationwide minimum hourly wages – federal, state, county, and city; and is the first in the nation to top $10 an hour. The minimum hourly wage increased by 32 cents from $9.92 to $10.24 per hour.

With the start of the New Year, California’s new Wage Theft Prevention Act and Employee Classification Act went into effect. The main points of the new Wage Theft Prevention Act:

• requires employers to provide workers, at the time they’re hired, a written disclosure of their basic terms of employment (the pay rate, the pay day, and the name and address of the legal employer)
• strengthens misdemeanor criminal penalties for employers who willfully fail to pay wages due in 90 days after final judgment
• allows a worker to recover attorney’s fees to enforce a court judgment for unpaid wages.

Some of the main points of the new Employee Classification Act include:

• making it unlawful for any persons or employer to engage in willful employee misclassification (classifying an employee as an ‘independent contractor’ rather than an ‘employee’)
• making it unlawful to charge any fees or make any deductions in a worker’s paycheck for expenses (space rental, services, repairs, good or materials, etc.) where such deductions would have been unlawful had the worker been classified as an employee
• increasing penalties that can be assessed against any employer for willful employee misclassification
• requiring employers who have been found to have committed employee misclassification to display a notice to its employees and the general public on their Web site and/or each location where it occurred.

This New Year, please take the time to examine your paystub and double-check that you’re being paid the correct amount. Remember, the Department of Labor has tools to help you track your pay, overtime and vacation time – an app for your smartphone and a printable work hours calendar in English and Spanish.

By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

It’s a mark of the terrible economy that more people are using food stamps, but the good news is that more than half of those newly benefiting are children. NCL’s founders would have said “hurrah” that the program is available at really tough economic times just like these, especially for kids.

When you look at the numbers—46.3 million people received food stamps—they represent a huge percentage of Americans: one in six, with a jump in the food stamp rolls of 8 percent over the past year. The Obama Administration says the program is more efficient than previously since benefits are provided electronically to recipients.

The Administration has cracked down on abuses, as it should. Benefits like these should be reserved for those who truly need them. We should have no patience for those who use a federal program to put money in their own pockets—including retailers who sell the prohibited cigarettes or alcohol using food stamps and take a commission for themselves. The Administration should throw the book at these folks, and they have—disqualifying 8,300 retailers from taking food stamps. And those who sell the food stamp benefits in exchange for cash on Craigslist should lose their access to the program permanently.

But these abuses shouldn’t diminish the critical importance of the program, which puts food on the plates of millions of the Americans in greatest need. Indeed, the food stamp program is one of the most successful of any of our government benefits. Our friends at the Food Action and Research Center, who work with hungry families and kids, note that “in the midst of one of the worst recessions this country has ever seen, food stamps kept very large numbers of families from going hungry. The program performed as it was intended to—it expanded to meet rising need, and the increased benefits helped millions afford enough nutrition for their households.”

Florence Kelley and Frances Perkins would be saddened by the fragile financial state of so many families, but they would be cheering the availability of this essential safety net for the poor.